GUWAHATI
The authorities of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) have laid off 157 contractual workers who were engaged in the exercise to update the list of citizens.
The sacking of the circle project supervisors followed the decision of NRC State Coordinator, Partha Pratim Mazumdar to replace the old employees with new ones.
“The employees told to go have been directed to submit all the valuables and documents on or before June 29,” an official at the NRC office said.
The sacked supervisors filed a petition at the Gauhati High Court against the move by the NRC authorities. The court is expected to examine their case soon.
Mr. Mazumdar was appointed as the State Coordinator of the NRC after Hitesh Dev Sarma retired on July 30, 2022.
The NRC exercise has been in limbo since the complete draft of citizens was published on August 31, 2019, excluding 19.06 lakh out of a total of 3.3 crore applicants. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Assam government and several NGOs found fault with the number of people excluded and demanded the re-verification of at least 10% of the names in all the districts.
The NRC exercise was also marred by allegations of a scam involving the former State Coordinator, Prateek Hajela. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) also flagged financial anomalies in the exercise conducted by the Registrar-General of India from 2015 to 2019, costing more than ₹1,600 crore.
